The Library ..... the pub ..... and the oilman .... with a thank you to Village Eltham

Now I know there will be plenty of pictures of the library knocking around and I dare say some better quality versions of this one which dates from around 1915.

Eltham High Street, circa 1915

But I like it for all sorts of reasons, not least because of the detail it offers of the High Street on a bright sunny day, but also because like many it was somewhere I regularly went to, added to which it was where our Stella worked during the 1970s and into the next decade.

So not surprising then that it crops up on the blog in various stories including some that feature a painting by Peter Topping, who like me has been drawn to it, which is a tribute to the building given that Peter is from Preston and has never visited Eltham.*

But I digress, going back to the photograph along with the Library on the north side of the High Street is The Rising sun whose landlady in 1918 was a Mrs. Shirley Relph who took over the pub after the death of her husband in 1909.  He was a William Relph who offered up beer and cheer from sometime in the 1880s and moved into the new Rising Sun when it was built in 1904.

The Rising Sun, 1915

The old pub according to our historian R.R.C Gregory was about 200 years old when it was demolished and replaced by the present pub .

Nor is that the only thing that intrigues me about William.

I had almost given up hope of finding him and then as you do I came across his widow Julia who was still in charge in 1911, and it was Julia who caught my imagination.

She was born in Cadiz, Spain and of course that raises all sorts of intriguing speculation.

But before I could go off on a flight of fancy I discovered her maiden name was West and like William her father was a publican.

That said her parents were in Spain between the birth of her brother in 1852 and when she was born two years later which may explain why they are missing from the census returns for the middle decades of the 19th century.

Directly opposite between Pound Place and Elm Terrace there was a group of tradesmen, which included Frederick Cook, baker at 142, George Mence Smith, oilman at 144, the coach builders Robert Whittaker & Coin 144a, leaving just William Ryde and Sons who were ironmongers and Thomas Grant Bootmaker.**

I am indebted to Paula Richardson, who along with Gus White and Ian Murdock produced a delightful little book in 1984 entitled Village Eltham, which   included 36 photographs of Eltham and the surrounding district drawn from their collection of old picture postcards.***

The book was sent to me by my friend Barbara who like me attended Crown Woods, and like me left Eltham in the late 1960s, me for Manchester and Barbara for Ontario,

Village Eltham, 1984

All of which means the book has travelled far.

Now ever mindful of copyright I only reproduced one image from the book along with the cover, and expressed the hope that the authors would see the story and grant me permission to use some more of the images.

And so just a few days after I posted the story  Pauls got in touch writing, “Hi Andrew - this brought back memories. We published this privately. Most of the postcards were collected by my ex partner, Ian and his friend, Gus. We were all members of the local history group in Eltham. 

I lost touch years ago when I moved to Australia, but I'm sure as long as you give us credit, it is ok for you to share some images, as the whole point of the book was to take them to a wider audience”.****

So I shall do just that.

*Eltham Library, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Eltham%20Library

**Eltham High Street, 1918, Post Office Directory, London, 1918

***A little bit of Eltham from Ontario in Canada, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2022/04/a-little-bit-of-eltham-from-ontario-in.html

 ****Eltham Village,  Gus White, Ian Murdock and Paula Richardson in 1984 and published by G & Pi Publications Eltham

A new park for Chorlton?

It’s not much of a story really but it does point to the changes that had been taking place in Chorlton over the last two decades of the 19th century.

Before the rapid development of housing in and around the railway station and along the Wilbraham and Barlow Moor Roads there had been plenty of open spaces with fields to walk around and woods to explore in and ponds and water courses to play beside.

This changed as more and more of Chorlton was given over to rows of houses which prompted one resident to write to the Manchester Guardian, “being so near town, there is a demand for houses and they rise like mushrooms.  

Rows, avenues, and semi detached in abundance, each with a small garden, where flowers can be grown if the smoke from the chimneys will allow; but very few have a grass plot large enough for the children to play on.”*

Apparently there had been hopes that a good site on Wilbraham Road might have been turned into a park but it was sold for building, “then the residue of an estate in Barlow Moor Road was for sale which is nicely wooded; that has now been sold to the Roman Catholics.”  All of which led the writer to fear that “Chorlton will soon be as crowded as Alexandra Park but without the park.”

But there was one field left which “in the general opinion of the residents is the right spot for the much talked of park.  The plot extends from Wilbraham Road to a new road about to be cut – Holland Road, I think it is to be called.  It is flanked on one side by Cavendish Road [Corkland] and on the other by the railway.”

It says much for the period that the writer expected the land and the maintenance of the park would be achieved by public subscription.

In the event it never happened and the plot was built on.  It would be a few more years before the Recreational Ground on Beech Road was laid out and well into the 1920s before Chorlton Park was established.

But next time I take the short cut down Zetland Road  [Holland] to Corkland Road [Cavendish] and onto Morrisons I’ll reflect on what might have been.

Pictures;, detail from the OS map of Lancashire, Manchester and South East, 1888-93, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk, and Holland Road from the Lloyd collection

* Manchester Guardian May 24 1892

Fourteen random pictures in search of a story …. photographs from a Chorlton house

I am looking at a collection of photographs found in a house.

They are mix of images all of which I guess date from the middle decades of the last century and were in a discarded box at 515-521 Barlow Moor Road.

And they are a mix, ranging from images of smart cars, and equally smart “young things” on holiday to a group of men in uniform and the Grand Hotel Oceanic. 

If there is a connection between all fourteen it is hard to discern what that might be, but cars and holidays seem crop up in a few of them.  

The quality varies and while some are fuzzy and indistinct others are sharp and look to have been taken by a professional or at least on a good camera.

So, the question then becomes what can I make of them?

There are no names, inscriptions or comments on the pictures, and the people stare back at me offering no clue to their identity.

Nor at first glance is it possible to make anything of the places.  In some we could be anywhere in the country and while there is a bus, half a pub and a shop they are not yielding up their secrets.

But we do have The Béout cable car and according to one local site worked the mountain called "Le Béout”, which is “southwest of the town of Lourdes. 

The Béout cable car (on the left bank of the Gave River) was somewhat of a counterpart to the Pic du Jer funicular (located on the right bank). 

Built around the 1930s, the cable car ceased operation in the 1990s and was permanently dismantled in 2000 (one of the cabins was once on display in the Pic du Jer parking lot)

Operated by the municipality, the cable car was shut down because it no longer met the new safety standards. The necessary upgrades would have been too costly (the Pibeste cable car suffered the same fate). The residents of Lourdes are nostalgic for this cable car, as it was free for them. 

Young people from Lourdes at the time remember the wooden floor of the cabin where you could see the drop through the slats”.

Our picture shows a group of tourists and amongst them are a couple who show up on at least three other pictures.

And as one of them is sitting in a smart car there is that possible link to the other picture of cars.

These include an E Type Jaguar and a sporty Triumph.

And the cars offer up our first series clue, because two of them display their registrations plates.  

Neither shows up in any searches, which would suggest the vehicle had been scrapped or exported but in the case of 7834VM it was issued by Manchester City Council between late 1961 and early 1963, while WCA574 can be tracked to Denbighshire in Wales and may date from the 1950s and early 1960s.

A date in the early sixties does also seem to chime in with the fashionable hair and clothes of one woman and confirmed by the presence of that E Type Jaguar which started rolling off production lines in 1961.

Now there will be an “expert” which can place the E Type and Triumph in their right year, but I am not one of them.

And I would have liked to have fixed the fourteen in the story of the house where they were found and in the bigger story of Chorlton.

But so far that is not to be.

Maybe someone will come forward and identify some of the individuals or knows who owned the pictures.  

In the meantime, I will continue to release the images but am well aware that the owner may long ago have left the area or just decided the pictures weren’t worth keeping.

All of which is sad, but the present owner of the property is thinking of displaying some of the photographs when the development is finished and the pictures can take pride of place as part of the story of 515-521 Barlow Moor Road.**

Location; at 515-521 Barlow Moor Road

Pictures; Fourteen random pictures in search of a story

*The Béout chasm in Lourdes; http://lieux.loucrup65.fr/gouffredelourdes.htm

**Armistead Property, http://www.armisteadproperty.co.uk/

Just when you thought you knew the age of the Trevor Arms on Beech Road

The Trevor was my local from 1976 well into the middle of the next decade and was a busy and happy place.

At the time and until quite recently I gave little thought to its history, it was simply the pub run by Stan and Mona and their daughter Christine and always a place where you find someone you knew to talk to.

If I did give its past any thought I just assumed the date above the door of 1908 was when it was opened, but beer was being sold from this spot from 1879.

Back then the site was occupied by a row of wattle and daub cottages, one of which had been the home of Mary Crowther who was made to do penance in the church at the beginning of the 19th century.

It is unclear what Mary had done but during the closing decades of the eighteenth century she had given birth to three illegitimate children and it may be that it was for this that she was made to do penance.

She was the last person to do so, and lived out her life, with one of her sons in the cottage and was buried in the parish church yard.

By 1871 one of these cottages was owned by the Langford family.

Jonathan Langford came from an old Chorlton family and a decade earlier had given his occupation as a "gardener" and lived on Dark Lane.

In 1874 his daughter Elizabeth was living there and running the shop and  by 1879 she was renting it out to a succession of “beer housekeepers.”

The last of these tenants was William Downs.  By 1897 the property was transferred to Groves and Whitnall which had taken over the Regent Road Brewery in 1868 and began a rapid expansion which by the time they were registered in 1899 included nearly 600 pubs.

Now there is a lot more I want to know about Mrs Langford as well as William Downs who in 1898 was superseded by Miss Mary Catherine Hayes.

But that is for another story.

Picture; the Trevor early 20th century from the collection of Tony Walker

Along time in the story of a house in Eltham

Cliefden House in 1909

Now I am back at Cliefden House.

This grand 18th century property is still there on the High Street opposite Passey Place.

It was built sometime around 1720 with an eastern addition dating from the mid 19th century.

Together this made for a large 17 roomed house which could accommodate and it has been both a private residence, and a school and now shops and offices.

I have written about it in the past and have decided on a second visit.  Now this is mainly because I want to feature a then and now set of pictures, although strictly speaking they are both then pictures.

The first dates from 1909 and the second from 1977.

Cliefen House in 1977

In the space of that time the front garden and wall have been sacrificed to the widening of the High Street and with scant disregard for such an elegant old property Granada and Frisbys Shoes set about adding the most appalling signage to the exterior.

And we may just have caught the place on a bad year for the front walls look in need of a coat of paint.

So I suppose today we have to be pleased that the present two occupants of the downstairs shops have been a little more subdued with their signs and a fresh coat of paint has been applied.

Pictures; Cliefden House in 1909 from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm and in 1977, courtesy of Jean Gammons

Out on Bury Road in 1949 ..............

Now, I like this picture, for lots of different reasons.

It was taken just a few months before I was born, out along Bury Old Road.

One day I will go looking for the firm Cornall of Bury, but for now I am content to study the old-fashioned lorry and the three men staring back at me.

Flat caps, overalls and long coats were the order of the day, over the sleek corporate uniforms supplied to transport workers today.

And the rest as they say is for you to discover, leaving me just to point to the bucket of water at the rear of the lorry on the pavement.

Location; Bury Old Road










Picture; Lorry, Bury Old Road, near Heaton Park, February 21st, 1949, from the collection of Allan Brown

Odd facts about Chorlton no 1 ...... when Mr and Mrs Royce lived on Holland Road

Now I like the way that I sometimes get asked to research a bit of Chorlton’s history, at which point I have to declare that it isn’t difficult, it is just a matter of trawling various official documents.

Holland Road, circa 1900

In this case tit was the Rate Books, which I used to find the address of Mr Frederick Henry Royce, he of the famous Rolls Royce partnership.

It turned out to take just a few minutes and I found Mr and Mrs Royce at 2 Holland Road, which is now Zetland Road from 1893, till February 1898.

The property was owned by Mr John Turner who owned 6 houses on Holland Road.

The annual rent was estimated at £35 and the rateable value was £29 15s.*

The property is still there, and is the first house on the western side of Zetland Road, from Corkland Road.

At which point I could go into great detail about the partnership but cars have never really interested me.

So I will leave it at that, only to say I could have taken a picture of the house today, but instead preferred this one, which dates from a little after they had left, and is of course of the other end of Holland/Zetland Road.

It is a scene I guess they would have been familiar with.

I have no idea how Mr Royce got to work, but by 1893 our railway station had been in the business of whisking commuters into the heart of the city in under fifteen minutes.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; Holland Road, circa 1900, from the Lloyd Collection

*Manchester Rate Books, 1893-98